-IANS The government is considering creating a corpus fund of Rs.1,000 crore ($18.7 million) in the current fiscal that would encourage banks to give housing loans in 'significant volumes' to the urban poor, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Tuesday. Addressing a conference on the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) here, Manmohan Singh said the corpus of Rs.1,000 would be set aside to create a credit risk guarantee fund that could...

-PTI The Punjab Government on Sunday announced freight subsidy for transportation of potato crop to domestic as well as export markets. Potato growers had on Saturday threatened to throw potatoes on the roads in Jalandhar on December 15 to protest the fall in the crop's price to as low as Rs.1 per kg and the “insensitive” attitude of the State government. Announcing a reprieve to potato growers across the State, Punjab Chief Minister...

U.P.'s GDP grew at 7.28 per cent in the past five years, but the State ranks low in virtually every area of socio-economic development. IF statistics on gross domestic product (GDP) are the only criteria to evaluate the performance of a government, the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government in Uttar Pradesh will have to be rated as one with highly impressive credentials. For, India's most populous State has recorded a...

-IANS   Azamgarh (Uttar Pradesh), Nov 30 (IANS) They wanted their children to get good quality education which they were bereft of. So people in a small village of Uttar Pradesh funded a bridge to send their kids to study in a town across the river. The number of students has been increasing in schools, colleges and madrassas on the other side of the Kunwar river in Saraimeer town, which has several educational...

-The Times of India   Given the debate that's raging over opening the retail sector to foreign direct investment, we bring you the government's view, the opposition's objections and TOI's take on the issue. Government argument * Huge investments in the retail sector will see gainful employment opportunities in agro-processing, sorting, marketing, logistics management and front-end retail. * At least 10 million jobs will be created in the next three years in the retail sector. *...